Developers eager to write native applications for the iPhone and iPod touch will have to wait until March for the software developer kit, according to a reported insider.

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek is allegedly in touch with a source who says the SDK for the two touchscreen devices will slip from its intended February release window by one to three weeks.

No justification is given for the delay. However, the progress of the development kit is described as "fluid" and may see Apple release little or no information about the programming environment before the end of February.

"There are, apparently, a lot of moving parts to something this complex," the writer claims.

The report claims authority based on past tips obtained by the magazine staff. The publication successfully leaked news of the SDK just a day before Apple chief executive Steve Jobs revealed official plans to open development to third parties in October.

Despite the delay, rumors have surfaced that the iPhone maker has been eager to spur development as soon as possible and may have released an early SDK to select developers, including a social networking site.

Wow. Shocker. Just because it's late February and not a peep from Apple, why would anyone think it might be released in March instead?

There are already quite a few apps for the iPhone. The difference between the ones now and the ones that Apple will be releasing is that the apps out there now are free. Apple is probably delayed because their payment system is not in place yet.

Does it really matter if the SDK is delayed a week or two in the amount of time until real, finished apps are available to users? Won't it take quite sometime to develop a decent app, like months?

If apps can be developed in less than a month's time, then I guess this delay is significant, otherwise.....well, Japan doesn't have iPhones anyway so if it wasn't for an Engadget reader meetup, I'd still have never even of seen one in person.

Does it really matter if the SDK is delayed a week or two in the amount of time until real, finished apps are available to users? Won't it take quite sometime to develop a decent app, like months?

If apps can be developed in less than a month's time, then I guess this delay is significant, otherwise.....well, Japan doesn't have iPhones anyway so if it wasn't for an Engadget reader meetup, I'd still have never even of seen one in person.

Good point. The SDK really benefits the guys that have already been developing and distributing iPhone/iPod Touch apps already.

There are already quite a few apps for the iPhone. The difference between the ones now and the ones that Apple will be releasing is that the apps out there now are free. Apple is probably delayed because their payment system is not in place yet.

You are basically just blowing smoke out of an orifice on this opinion though aren't you?

There is nothing to indicate either that Apple will force developers to charge for their work or that the iPhone hackers, once presented with a system to monetise their efforts, won't take advantage of that.

If the WinCE or Palm experiences are any judge, every hacker who steals the code for Tetris and makes their own game out of it will probably be asking five bucks for the privilege. At least with iTunes distribution, there will be a lot less dreck to sift through when searching for an app.

In any case, the only solid rumour of any kind (so far) concerning pricing indicated that (like the thousands of PodCasts Apple already offers and hosts for FREE), a price of "free" will be offered as an option but in general the prices on iPhone apps will range from 5 to 10 bucks.

In Windows, a window can be a document, it can be an application, or it can be a window that contains other documents or applications. Theres just no consistency. Its just a big grab bag of monkey...

You are basically just blowing smoke out of an orifice on this opinion though aren't you?

There is nothing to indicate either that Apple will force developers to charge for their work or that the iPhone hackers, once presented with a system to monetise their efforts, won't take advantage of that.

If the WinCE or Palm experiences are any judge, every hacker who steals the code for Tetris and makes their own game out of it will probably be asking five bucks for the privilege. At least with iTunes distribution, there will be a lot less dreck to sift through when searching for an app.

In any case, the only solid rumour of any kind (so far) concerning pricing indicated that (like the thousands of PodCasts Apple already offers and hosts for FREE), a price of "free" will be offered as an option but in general the prices on iPhone apps will range from 5 to 10 bucks.

Of course. This is Speculation City. It would be safe to say that if it goes through iTunes there will be a charge for it. My true desire would be that Apple will allow apps to be installed from various sources. I have nothing wrong with charging for your work. After all, fair is fair. I just hope the SDK doesn't open one door while closing another.

Well this sucks. Hopefully it doesn't get delayed more than this. Any ideas as to why?

Oh God, people. Do you want a SDK that is rushed to market and has bugs in it? Or do you want the SDK done right? It's not like your lives hinge on the SDK being released in February.

Quote:

Originally Posted by g3pro

Hopefully we'll begin seeing applications for the iPhone by late this year. Some of the stuff coming out so far on Android is truly impressive. iPhone development has a lot to catch up on.

Oh really? I'm not saying that the iPhone doesn't have room for improvement, but considering the fact that there actually *IS* an iPhone that you have been able to purchase for the last 9 months while there are no Android phones on the market at all, I would say that the iPhone has the lead. Also, considering that the iPhone has the only multi-touch interface on the market, and has an entire (unsupported) world of 3rd-party apps already, I don't think the iPhone is in the loser seat here.

Spot on. Apple has only to go into a Nokia store, or SE shop. Pick up a phone, play with it and copy some of the more usable features and make the iPhone into a super phone. With the UI, it is clearly in the lead, but the other guys are going to catch up. They see that there is a market for a nice UI and media integration.

I think the framework and delivery mechanism is already there in itunes and the firmware 1.1.3 update as I think it's what Apple used to deliver the apps to the touch?

So what we are waiting for is documentation and the tools and extensions to xcode to develop the apps?

I think app could delay the docs and tools until march, but they should make available a few applications either developed by them or the rumoured "trusted" 3rd party developers (BBC iplayer anyone?) that would make most people, except developers happy?

Hopefully we'll begin seeing applications for the iPhone by late this year. Some of the stuff coming out so far on Android is truly impressive. iPhone development has a lot to catch up on.

We should see viable apps within weeks, just like what we already saw with jailbroken phones, if not much shorter time frames like a week. Apptap was already out before the end of August and it already had plenty of programs. It even sounds like maybe there will be a few authorized third party apps released the same day.

Spot on. Apple has only to go into a Nokia store, or SE shop. Pick up a phone, play with it and copy some of the more usable features and make the iPhone into a super phone. With the UI, it is clearly in the lead, but the other guys are going to catch up. They see that there is a market for a nice UI and media integration.

On the other hand, how easy will it be for competitors like Nokia to use the upcoming SDK and emulate something similar for their phones?

On the other hand, how easy will it be for competitors like Nokia to use the upcoming SDK and emulate something similar for their phones?

I don't think it's technically easy, and there may be a question of legality as well, except maybe for the dashboard-like widgets that I think they've already done, but that's mostly made up of common web standard stuff.

Has any one consider the possibility that the 3G iPhone isn't ready and that they want to time the release of both.

The other way to look at this is that it is not a SDK issue per say but rather an i8ssue with the OS that the apps run on. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had a major update to Mobile OS that would firm up its capabilities so that the SDK would actually be useful.

I think the framework and delivery mechanism is already there in itunes and the firmware 1.1.3 update as I think it's what Apple used to deliver the apps to the touch?

So what we are waiting for is documentation and the tools and extensions to xcode to develop the apps?

I think app could delay the docs and tools until march, but they should make available a few applications either developed by them or the rumoured "trusted" 3rd party developers (BBC iplayer anyone?) that would make most people, except developers happy?

From what I've read, the apps for the touch were not delivered the same way as SDK apps will be. Supposedly it just changed a .plist file to activate applications that were already on the iPod.

Oh really? I'm not saying that the iPhone doesn't have room for improvement, but considering the fact that there actually *IS* an iPhone that you have been able to purchase for the last 9 months while there are no Android phones on the market at all, I would say that the iPhone has the lead. Also, considering that the iPhone has the only multi-touch interface on the market, and has an entire (unsupported) world of 3rd-party apps already, I don't think the iPhone is in the loser seat here.

Well Apple has the iPhone, but good for Android:
+ SDK is already out, so every developer can play with emulator
+ Android is built on Java that has several advantages including: security, vastly larger developer community, superior IDEs, ease of development
+ service oriented architecture
+ all apps are equal, everything including the homescreen can be changed (you just need your app to say "Hello Android I can launch apps" and user can choose your app as the home screen)
+ openess of Google
+ Google already provided some apps like GoogleMaps, Webkit which can be even embedded into other applications
+ various APIs including GPS, speech recognition and speech synthesis etc.

... Google has different aproach than Apple, it doesn't want to control the whole device ... so it provides open platform to developers, so they can bring their apps to public as soon as Google Android hits the market

In any case, the only solid rumour of any kind (so far) concerning pricing indicated that (like the thousands of PodCasts Apple already offers and hosts for FREE), a price of "free" will be offered as an option but in general the prices on iPhone apps will range from 5 to 10 bucks.

Just a nit... Apple doesn't physically "host for FREE" the podcasts that appear in the iTunes store.

Apple's iTunes Store servers contain:

- a brief description of each podcast for searching/browsing
- a way to automatically recognize when new items are added/updated to a podcast
- a mechanism for categorizing, subscribing, watching/listening and downloading podcasts
- an RSS feed that points to the podcasts on an external (to Apple) server, and allows iTunes (on your computer) and the iTunes Store to perform their magic as though the podcasts did exist on Apple's servers.

The actual podcast content can reside on any external server the creator chooses.

HTH

Dick

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Well Apple has the iPhone, but good for Android:
+ SDK is already out, so every developer can play with emulator
+ Android is built on Java that has several advantages including: security, vastly larger developer community, superior IDEs, ease of development
+ service oriented architecture
+ all apps are equal, everything including the homescreen can be changed (you just need your app to say "Hello Android I can launch apps" and user can choose your app as the home screen)
+ openess of Google
+ Google already provided some apps like GoogleMaps, Webkit which can be even embedded into other applications
+ various APIs including GPS, speech recognition and speech synthesis etc.

... Google has different aproach than Apple, it doesn't want to control the whole device ... so it provides open platform to developers, so they can bring their apps to public as soon as Google Android hits the market

I agree with you in some way. The Android SDK is opened and base on Java which makes for easier to develop applications. And Android phone can be customize by the phone maker in many way... But the big difference is that it will be more difficult for a Android phone to attain the same level of UI experience than the iPhone. You just have to play some time with the Android Emulator to realize it. Android will be more polished over time but it is always more difficult for set of community to develop a good user interface than it is for a maker alone... Apple can dictate the behavior of the whole thing...

I agree with you in some way. The Android SDK is opened and base on Java which makes for easier to develop applications. And Android phone can be customize by the phone maker in many way... But the big difference is that it will be more difficult for a Android phone to attain the same level of UI experience than the iPhone. You just have to play some time with the Android Emulator to realize it. Android will be more polished over time but it is always more difficult for set of community to develop a good user interface than it is for a maker alone... Apple can dictate the behavior of the whole thing...

But it's two opposite and interesting approaches to building a phone.

Yes, I agree with you too. Android however may be used in several ways. For example some manufacturer may choose to offer it's own set of applications that may (not) be comparable to Apple in terms of user experience. Apple is number one in usability and knows how to make user interfaces that are far ahead of competition. However independent developers can relatively simply develop new application and there is high probability that some of the developers will top Apple.

It depends a lot how companies offering Andoid will be able to choose good package for user, because many apps will have simply totally different user interfaces. It's good to have option as a customer though especially when both iPhone and Android are based on totally different approaches. Both Android and OS X use desktop-class kernels and are technologicaly comparable. And from my point of view Android is technologicaly/architecturaly more advanced, while OS X has leadership in UI.

I had Treos for 10 years. They were amazing in what they could do...change fonts in Word, Excel, Powerpoint. Control your computer remotely. Play movies. Work as a GPS with the external probe. All that with 64K of RAM.

Also there were famous programs that would crash the whole thing and yes render the phone useless. Yes sometimes in the middle of the street.

Lots of resets. Reset. Reset. Reset. Trying to make a call. The most famous nasty program was Butler. Butler was blamed for everything. It even corrupted the whole PC after Sync.

Somehow it did not seem so bad at the time. You'd think that one would be upset. Somehow being on the street with no phone and a sick PC were things one got out of.

Lost data. Several crashes. It did happen. There were 25,000 Treo applications. Some free. Some expensive. Some super complicated with 200 page manuals. Fancy calendars. Voice recognition. You name it.

A wait of a month is nothing. I remember sometimes it would take a month or two to find combinations of programs that created resets and freezes. Sudden high volume attacks. PC crashes after sync. Butler and BKdate5? Super crash. Fix one, another would pop up.

There are two ways to do this. Make the applications super nice behaved with plenty of controls. Or let it out crazy like. The crazy approach creates more creativity and flexibility. The other way tends to make things more stable.

Lost data. Several crashes. It did happen. There were 25,000 Treo applications. Some free. Some expensive. Some super complicated with 200 page manuals. Fancy calendars. Voice recognition. You name it.

Android architecture is totally different from Treo I guess. You have no problem with crashing the phone because of a application running in virtual machine. Also aplications cannot influence each other except sending messages. There are no pointers rovering thorough system like in C-family languages. Security is ensured without need to signing applications.

And about manuals: depends on specific application, there will be many developers with different experience and difrent quality of products. Apple is not the only one who can create good user interfaces. The fact that Microsoft and similar are unable to create user friendly OS doesn't mean that there are no user-friendly applications from other developers.

Apple never announced an event for this Tuesday. Rumors were based on it being the last possible Tuesday in the month. Typically Apple invites the press days in advance for any "event." The roll out of new MacBook Pros would be such an event, but the lack of press invitations signals not this month. The SDK however, does not need an event to be released, since it's aimed at developers not the public. I've expected Apple to have an event for it, and to preview some already existing third party apps. But that may not be the case.

So, does this delay point to a MacBook Pro event this Tuesday, even though everyone was assuming this Tuesday's event was certainly the SDK?

What event? The 'big 26th event' myth was debunked within the last week, there never was one. Either way the I'm expcting the release of the iPhone SDK will be the same as all the other developer releases, I'll get an email telling me the new iPhone SDK is available, possibly as part of a new XCode download, that will be it.

What event? The 'big 26th event' myth was debunked within the last week, there never was one. Either way the I'm expcting the release of the iPhone SDK will be the same as all the other developer releases, I'll get an email telling me the new iPhone SDK is available, possibly as part of a new XCode download, that will be it.

Waiting another few weeks for the iPhone SDK won't be a tragedy (and I have a vested interest in getting my hands on it). But Apple's recent inability to accurately estimate their deadlines is a little annoying.

The reason for the delay is almost certainly the obvious one - it's *not ready*. No mystery, people.

Like everything else coming out from Apple recently, the SDK gets delayed also. This will have some negative impact on the iPhone sales and potentially the AAPL stock .

Anybody knows when was the last time they had 4 GB refurbished iPhones on the Apple store? End of November, I think but I remember reading they re-appeared in February also. I so want one right now . Any chance all those 4 GB demo models will become available again. Let's say just right before the 32 GB version comes out?

if only Steve had said first quarter instead of Feb., they wouldn't "potentially" be in this mess now..

Apple should let us know of a there is a delay asap so every knows where they stand and we can move on.. just say sorry not ready yet but it will be available on march whatever. It would suck but people may respect being kept in the loop.

if only Steve had said first quarter instead of Feb., they wouldn't "potentially" be in this mess now..

Apple should let us know of a there is a delay asap so every knows where they stand and we can move on.. just say sorry not ready yet but it will be available on march whatever. It would suck but people may respect being kept in the loop.

Maybe this is an aside to this topic but are people here deluded into thinking that "Steve" is their friend and let's them in on the inner workings of Apple and its decision processes? Steve's loyalty is to the shareholder and the current Mrs. Jobs. Period. If "Steve" could get us to buy air without providing an oxygen component, he would. Steve Jobs and Apple are not our friends. They are a company that survives on our good graces and our ability to purchase their products. What do you think would happen if there was a one month boycott of Apple products? They would have a sh..t hemorrhage. As long as Apple feels they can treat customers the way they do and have a hard core base of apologists, there is no reason for them to change their behavior.

Well this sucks. Hopefully it doesn't get delayed more than this. Any ideas as to why?

I don't know that there has to be a better "why" than that in a complicated project, things crop up and you have to deal with them.

But there's a point I don't think I've seen brought up: remember that the iPhone OS X team contains a lot of the top-tier regular OS X team. Remember that huge 10.5.2 update? I wonder if that was a distraction for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69

Has any one consider the possibility that the 3G iPhone isn't ready and that they want to time the release of both.

I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment. My memory is that Steve Jobs had said "late 2008", with a "maybe" tossed in for good measure.

I don't know that there has to be a better "why" than that in a complicated project, things crop up and you have to deal with them.

But there's a point I don't think I've seen brought up: remember that the iPhone OS X team contains a lot of the top-tier regular OS X team. Remember that huge 10.5.2 update? I wonder if that was a distraction for them.

I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment. My memory is that Steve Jobs had said "late 2008", with a "maybe" tossed in for good measure.

Thanks for a great common sense post Ronbo. To see grown adults whine and moan over this is more than amusing. Things happen, delays happen. The very same ones complaining that there is a delay will be the same ones complaining that Apple should have taken their time and done it properly.